Nearly 2,500 persons have been killed in the renewed campaign against illegal drugs since President Duterte assumed the highest post of the land, police data revealed yesterday.
Based on the data of the Philippine National Police, 1,805 persons were killed by vigilante groups and other suspects from July 1 to August 31 this year.
Senior Supt. Dionardo Carlos, PNP spokesman, said they categorized those who were killed not by the police as Deaths Under Investigation.
“DUI is separate from killed during police operations under the Project Double Barrel,” said Carlos.
Project Double Barrel is the anti-drugs strategy laid down by the PNP under Director General Ronald dela Rosa in which operations against street-level pushing and those considered as high-value targets are done simultaneously.
The PNP said the number of suspected drug pushers and users killed in nationwide police operations have reached 1,011 from July 1 to yesterday morning.
A total of 14,798 were arrested while 685,740 surrendered.
Carlos said there were 1,672 incidents of attacks against suspected drug personalities and other civilians in which 1,805 of them were victims.
Of the 1,805 victims, 1,391 of them were killed, including those by cardboard justice, in which victims were killed because they were pushers, users, or street criminals.
Of the 1,672 incidents, only 281 cases were filed so far for a case filing rate of 16.8 percent.
The data also revealed that there were 176 persons arrested who were believed to be involved in summary executions and other forms of attacks on drug personalities.
A total of 105 persons who were initially invited for questioning, however, were cleared. (Aaron B. Recuenco)